


one step closer to the heart of things

by idrilka



Series: studies on intimacy [2]
Category: Yuri!!! on Ice (Anime)
Genre: Coda, Engagement, First Time, Hand Jobs, M/M, POV Victor Nikiforov, Post-Episode 10, Pre-Grand Prix Final
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-11
Updated: 2016-12-11
Packaged: 2018-09-08 00:05:15
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,067
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8821678
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/idrilka/pseuds/idrilka
Summary: He knows that Yuuri likes to hide what he really feels behind metaphors. But when that metaphor is a solid weight around your ring finger, it’s that much harder to ignore it.
(Or: On taking a step forward.)





	

**Author's Note:**

> I thought I was done with episode codas. Then episode 10 just laughed in my face. So a triptych it is.  
> Huge thanks to everyone who enabled me on twitter and in real life, and to radialarch for keeping my monstrously long sentences in check and daily crying about Victor Nikiforov's everything. ♥

The glint of gold is like a will-o’-the-wisp in the night—impossible to look away from. 

Normally, the chill of Barcelona in December would be enough for Victor to tug his gloves back on, mindful of the way cold air wreaks havoc on the skin of his hands, but he finds himself glancing down at his ring finger every now and then against his better judgment, smothering a smile. 

They’re walking back to the hotel far too late into the evening for it to be reasonable, and as a coach, he should have more common sense, but as Victor, he can’t help the way the warmth in his chest blooms every time his fingers brush against Yuuri’s ring, their hands clasped tight between them. Their group has mostly grown quiet by now, their minds on tomorrow’s short program, but they still walk side by side in companionable silence as Barcelona slowly starts to fall asleep. 

Next to Victor, Yuuri is leaning slightly against his shoulder, bleeding warmth into Victor’s skin even through the layers of clothing. It’s one of those things Victor learned almost incidentally, somewhere along the way—Yuuri is always warm. For someone like Victor, who spent years living in a cold, impersonal apartment with only a dog for company, it’s still a revelation.

“I’m really happy for you, guys,” Phichit says unexpectedly as they start to get closer to the hotel. 

He looks between the two of them, and Victor recognizes this look, the slightly wistful tone in his voice. It was there earlier, too, at the restaurant, the moment of hesitation and quiet acceptance. Victor wants to say _I’m sorry_ , and in a way, he is, because he, too, spent months longing for something that was at the same time so close and just out of his reach. But he doesn’t intend to apologize for his happiness, either. 

He looks to the side, at Yuuri, who walks in silence, with his face halfway buried in his scarf and his other hand hidden in the pocket of his coat, lost in thought. 

There’s nothing left to be said, so he just inclines his head with a smile that he hopes conveys everything he can’t say out loud where the others might hear. Victor understands. He, of all people, should know how incredibly easy it is to fall in love with Yuuri.

 

They say goodbye to the rest of the party in the front lobby and spend the elevator ride up to their room in silence, leaning against each other. They’ve come a long way since the days where it seemed like Victor’s touch did nothing but burn against Yuuri’s skin, leaving Yuuri unable to bear the closeness and Victor mostly hurt and confused. 

What he learned earlier today did a lot to explain that confusion, and Victor had let go of the hurt a long time ago, but at the time, he couldn’t help but wonder what he did wrong.

Back when he first saw that video, he thought it was supposed to be a reminder of a promise he never really made but still intended to keep. Now that he knows it was something else, he still can’t bring himself to regret the decision to come to Japan, if this is how it ends—the two of them, exchanging rings and more promises, this time for life.

Their room is dark and quiet when they come in. Victor drops the shopping bags by the door and turns on the light, suddenly too bright after the comfortable, muted glow of the lamps in the hallway. It makes everything stand out sharper and feels wrong, somehow, like what they have to say to each other should be said in the softly-lit spaces suspended between light and darkness.

“Wait, I’ll turn on the bedside lamp,” he says to Yuuri, crossing the space between the door and the beds, pushed together close enough that if they wanted, they could be touching hands. “There. Better.”

Yuuri stays strangely quiet. Victor realizes that he’s been silent and subdued ever since they left the restaurant, content to stay in Victor’s space but just a little bit absent at the same time. He gets like this sometimes, when he’s anxious about something and determined not to let it show. Sometimes, Victor knows, it’s better to coax him out of it, but at other times the only thing he can do is wait for Yuuri to take the step forward and bridge the gap, with the full knowledge that Victor will be always there, waiting for him. 

It’s not a leap of faith. That only implies you don’t know what’s there on the other side of the fall.

In the meantime, Victor pulls off his scarf and unbuttons his coat, pours a glass of water for himself, and another one for Yuuri. It’s nearing midnight now, and they should be getting ready for bed, but there’s still this undercurrent of tension between them, waiting to be resolved. 

Victor is no stranger to pushing until something almost breaks—that’s why he can still, at twenty-seven, execute a perfect _développé à la seconde_ and hold the position even as his battered toes start to scream with pain—but there’s a difference between pushing and shattering. He’s done his fair share of the latter, too, back in China. Now he knows better.

And so he waits.

Yuuri takes the glass offered to him, takes a drink and puts it away on the bedside table, then undoes the buttons on his coat and throws it onto the mattress next to his scarf.

“Victor.” He pauses briefly as he sits down on the bed next to his discarded clothing, then looks up. “Were you serious earlier? About the engagement.”

There’s a moment of silence before Victor asks, “Were _you_?”

He knows that Yuuri likes to hide what he really feels behind metaphors. But when that metaphor is a solid weight around your ring finger, it’s that much harder to ignore it.

“Yes.” 

The word is quiet but perfectly clear, a testament to how serious Yuuri is. Here, in the four walls of the hotel room in Barcelona, there are no reasons for them to pretend or hide. 

Victor kneels in front of him and takes Yuuri’s hands in his. When he touches the ring on Yuuri’s finger, it’s like he’s been drawn to it by some strange force, the glint of it deep and golden in the low light of the bedside lamp.

It’s not quite a spell, but it’s close enough. 

“Good,” he says before lifting Yuuri’s right hand to his lips and placing a soft kiss where the ring meets the skin, the touch of metal cold against the warmth of Yuuri’s fingers. “So was I.”

It’s a simple statement. It shouldn’t make Victor this breathless, like he’s just finished two free skates in a row, without stopping even for a second, without stepping out on a single triple axel, a single quad, a single spin. 

Before Victor knows it’s happening, Yuuri tugs him up and forward by the sweater he’s wearing and kisses the corner of Victor’s mouth, his lips warm and slightly chapped from the cold, and Victor falls into it with his eyes closed and his arms wide open. It’s been like that from the very beginning—the feeling of the plunge is a powerful thing, and Victor has been falling and falling, and falling for a long time now.

“I need to take a shower,” Yuuri whispers against Victor’s lips after a moment, his voice unexpectedly low and rough, and Victor nods numbly, his throat suddenly dry.

While Yuuri is in the bathroom, Victor just lies on the unmade bed on top of the covers, undressed down to a tank top and slacks, and listens to the sound of the water hitting the tile and Yuuri’s quiet voice as he half-hums, half-sings in the shower.

The air conditioning is on in the room, and the air feels slightly chilly, but maybe it’s just the absence of Yuuri’s warmth at his side that makes Victor shiver. They’ve been so close these past few days—few months, really—and closeness like this breeds a particular sort of familiarity: quiet, domestic and understated. If someone told Victor at fifteen—twenty—twenty-five that he would be content with having just that, nothing more, he would’ve laughed. 

He knew, in a way, that there was something missing, but he had no idea it would be this—falling asleep to the sound of someone else’s breathing, in a quiet room at a tiny inn in rural Japan; sharing cozy hotel rooms before competitions and listening to someone singing off-key in the shower; falling into bed with the warmth of another body at his side and knowing that Yuuri will still be there when he wakes up. 

 

He dozes off, woken up only by the sound of the quiet footsteps and the dip of the mattress as Yuuri sits down on the edge of the bed. He’s wearing nothing but a white towel wrapped around his waist, his hair still damp and slicked back as he rummages through his luggage is search of his sleeping clothes. 

For a moment, Victor feels content just watching the way muscle shifts under the skin of Yuuri’s back when he bends down and reaches into the suitcase, the arch of his spine strong and graceful. Victor knows there’s steel hidden in those bones, has seen first-hand just how strong Yuuri can be even if he doesn’t always believe it himself. 

He reaches out to touch him almost without realizing, and it’s only once his hand rests at the center of Yuuri’s back, palm flat, that he realizes he’s even moved at all. 

Yuuri startles. 

“I didn’t mean to wake you up,” he says, looking over his shoulder at Victor, who shifts and moves up on the bed to drape himself across Yuuri’s back. “You looked pretty tired.”

Victor kisses the nape of Yuuri’s neck in lieu of answering, tracing the small cluster of beauty marks that almost looks like a constellation with his lips. He feels more than hears the way Yuuri’s breath stutters in his chest. For a moment, Victor stays perfectly still behind Yuuri, with his lips pressed against the protruding bump of Yuuri’s vertebra, his fingers slowly drifting down the column of Yuuri’s spine. 

The truth is, this sport that they love can never love them back; it’s hell on their bodies, the beauty of it just a thin veneer, hiding years’ worth of hurt and skating through the pain with gritted teeth; hiding broken arches and fractured toes, and knees all shot to hell. Hiding the havoc they wreak upon their own bodies trying to hold onto their fading youth. 

But Victor has learned over the years to appreciate the beauty that comes from this sort of pain—earned and expected, almost welcome despite the suffering and the sacrifices they choose to make, over and over again. It’s an art, like everything else they do. The imperfect perfection of their bodies, frozen in a single gesture. 

Yuuri is the same, his body battered and bruised, and still beyond beautiful in a way that makes Victor ache with something more than just simple familiarity. So when he kisses the place where Yuuri’s neck meets his shoulder and feels Yuuri shiver under his touch, and when he slowly kisses up the graceful slope of Yuuri’s neck, and when he reaches for Yuuri’s right hand, tangling their fingers together—he makes sure to let Yuuri know, with each of those gestures, how much he adores him. Tonight, the soft glint of their rings catching light and catching his eye every now and then makes him feel like his chest is about to blossom, vines sprouting and twining around his ribs like spring has finally come after years and years of winter. 

“You know I want to marry you regardless of what happens tomorrow, right?” he says, his breath catching slightly when Yuuri kisses the inside of his wrist, the center of his palm. 

It needs to be said, and it needs to be said now, for no reason other than that it is the truth. Victor doesn’t want Yuuri to skate out there tomorrow without knowing that no matter what happens, Victor will always stay by his side. 

In response, Yuuri turns around and kisses him until their lips are tingling and they’re both breathless with it. They’re still holding hands, their fingers tangled together, when Yuuri whispers a quiet, “I know,” against Victor’s lips. “But I’m still going to win.”

When he kisses him again, Victor can feel his smile.

“Good,” he says between kisses. “I would expect nothing less.”

They’re both tired, the exhaustion of the day full of excitement slowly slipping in and settling in for the night inside their bodies, but Yuuri still pushes Victor gently against the mattress and follows, lips on lips, their fingers still clasped together. With his free hand, Yuuri pushes the fabric of Victor’s tank top up to his chest, and Victor doesn’t keep him waiting; instead, he lets go of Yuuri’s hand for a moment and pulls the shirt over his head, settling back on his side facing Yuuri. They keep lying like that for a moment, Victor’s hand cupping the curve of Yuuri’s jaw, his thumb brushing along the line of his cheekbone, before Yuuri pulls him closer and closer, until Victor is leaning over him, feeling light-headed with his scent and warmth. 

Yuuri reaches down to unzip Victor’s slacks and push them down to his thighs along with his underwear, then pulls Victor down by the hips and surges up to meet him halfway.

It’s impossible to misunderstand what he wants.

Victor’s heart is pounding like he’s sixteen again and about to have sex for the first time, except he’s not sixteen anymore, and it’s not the bathroom at the after party following his Junior World Championship title. There are miles and miles in distance and experience between that Victor, long-haired and young, and scared out of his mind but exhilarated at the same time, and this Victor, older and more worldly, who has never been more sure of anything in his entire life. 

He never stops kissing Yuuri as they keep slowly grinding against each other, the pressure just this side of not enough to get him over the edge, so he gets a hand between them, and Yuuri, to his surprise, follows suit until their fingers tangle together once more, their grip gentle but firm. After that, all it takes is a few minutes before Yuuri makes a choked off sound in his throat and spills all over their joined hands. Victor follows him there just a moment later, his eyes closed and his mouth slack against Yuuri’s lips. 

They lie there for a moment without moving, their foreheads touching, until their breathing slows down and synchronizes, like they’ve been doing this for years, like their bodies know each other by touch. 

One day soon he is going to marry this man in the eyes of God and people, with the entire world watching, and it will be like finally coming home. 

He never thought that, after years of constantly moving forward, chasing after his own shadow, a moment of perfect stillness would feel this good. 

Under him, Yuuri blushes faintly as he reaches to the bedside table for a tissue, and Victor rolls over to the side, his pants still stuck around his hips, his hair a complete mess, and a laugh bubbling up his throat. He throws an arm over his eyes and smiles into the crook of his elbow. 

Earlier, when he thought about how it might happen, he always imagined grand gestures and perfect beds, not a hotel room at the tail end of a long evening right before the Grand Prix Final. But it’s strangely fitting, too—the casual intimacy of it, the way the two of them just fit effortlessly, without pretense.

It might have started with a banquet and the eyes of everyone in the room turned on them, but the truth is, he fell in love quietly, months later, between one breath and another.

He falls asleep a while later to the sound of Yuuri’s slow, measured breathing, surrounded by his warmth and his scent. Yuuri’s head rests on Victor’s collarbone, and he has his arm wrapped around Victor’s waist, clinging to his side. The other half of the bed remains pristine, sheets tucked in and undisturbed, like no one was even there, but the tangle of limbs and sheets where they slowly drift off to sleep wrapped around each other testifies to a life well-lived. 

For Victor, that’s the first time in a long, long time.

 

Early in the morning, Victor slips out of bed and walks to the waterfront after quietly stealing Yuuri’s coat, hands tucked in the pockets. When he buries his face in the collar, he can smell his cologne and beyond that, the scent that is unmistakably Yuuri, warm and earthy, and familiar. In the air, there’s the smell of cold wind and salt water coming from the ocean, and this, too, feels like home.

When Victor stretches his right arm in front of his eyes, the morning light catches the glimmer of gold on his finger and reflects it in a spark of color. It’s the light of day that makes it real in the end, the fact that slowly but surely, they came one step closer to the heart of things, and when they leave this place, they will leave different people than they came. The rings are just one part of that. 

In a few days, it will be over—not the season, no, because there are still programs to skate and medals to win, but the journey that brought them here, to this place, together. In a way, though, it’s just the beginning, too, because when they leave Barcelona, it will be only up to them what happens next. 

In a few hours, Yuuri will take to the ice to fight for what he wants, and Victor will be right by his side the entire time.

In a few days, they will go home, back to Hasetsu, regardless of what happens here in Barcelona, and they will love, and live.

**Author's Note:**

> If you want to, come say hi on [tumblr](http://idrilka.tumblr.com/) :)


End file.
